A Shadow's Redemption: Ghosts of Cronos
by The Silent Echo
Summary: AU of Guard of the twilght's Chosen One series and I Am SomeoneI Am No One's (now discontinued) Deceitful Wings. Full list of other Authors invoved inside. This is the prologue. Rate M for mild to sever obscenity, violence, gore, and moral isues (it's war in here). Prologue should only be around 4 or 5 chapters.


**Author's Note**

_This is just here to explain how the font is going to work. If the lettering is bold, it is just a heading. Pretty self explanatory I know but that was for the people that wanted a procedure put on air liner peanut bags because they were confused on what to do. Italics are reserved for alternate perspectives of the main character, flashbacks, song lyrics, and author's notes. Also the Insane Version of Silent Echo will not be contributing to this series in the slightest. For basically the entire arc to make sense you pretty much have to read I am SomeoneI am No One's Deceitful Wings, (yes the discontinued version), Guard of the Twilights Chosen One series, as well as the blademaster tales By Lixie the Eeveetrainer. This is AU, so don't complain about plot discrepancies or anything like that. The previous writers also own… You know what? Screw it! If you read the backstories then you'll know the huge ass list that that makes. Most of the individual Shadows are mine save for Dawn and the concepts for the shadows as a whole. Pathetically long AN over. _

**12 Years BCEG (Before Cronos End Game); **

"_Three years. Three years of development and still nothing to show for it. Twenty six failures have left Danisha far from hopeful for the success of Project Shadow, but I know better. We are on the verge of something truly revolutionary, something capable of saving the human race from certain purging at the hands of Arceus. I know we have the right formula this time, we have to, too much is a stake here."_

"_Anna! Ma'am!"_

_Anna Stark put down her logbook to confront the one responsible for the intrusion. How many times did she have to tell those damn imbeciles that she was not to be disturbed in her office without at least having the common decency to knock first, and usually not even then. The scientist, LaChance, she thought his name, was seemed absolutely elated. Since Team Shadow had little tolerance for lacking clearance for whatever sector you happened to reside in, this struck Anna as one of the strangest sights she had seen since deciding to join nearly a decade earlier. Then it dawned on her: LaChance was her assistant on Project Shadow. They had done it! They had actually done it! She decided to head down immediately, ignoring all attempts of conversation from her usually inept assistant. Perhaps he would prove useful after all._

The first thing I felt was an immense hunger I couldn't quite place. It permeated every thought that entered my brain, despite this I still managed to acquire the faculties that I assumed were normal: Sight, Hearing, Taste, anything that any other of my kind would feel. This too, however was a problem, I may be conscious of my ability to see, but that did not give me the ability to see clearly in the dark, so therefore I had no idea what I was. I could barely see my own claws in front of my face when another sensation hit me, pain. It seemed to course through every fiber of my being, and although I didn't know how I knew this, lucky guess perhaps, but I knew it was somehow linked to the hunger I initially felt. I then began to hear excited voices outside of whatever… chamber that I was in. I didn't know what it was, but my hunger was driving me mad the closer they seemed to get, all I could think of was stopping there approach in any way possible, but my struggles in the chamber only seemed to encourage them. It occurred to me later that these were likely those responsible for my creation, but the hunger clearly made no distinction.

I heard a voice that I could actually understand, "Well LaChance? Open it!"

The one called LaChance was evidently not to brave, although something was telling me that I was a special case for him. I then heard him ordering others that were called grunts to open my chamber. Big mistake.

"Damn, are you ugly, I never did like Latios all that much, at least he's asleep right man?"

"He is asleep, right Anna?" There was a long pause, "Ma'am?"

It was at this moment I decide to strike, the hunger was driving me insane and I needed to stop it somehow. I decided I would simply remove those connected to it from my presence. The first "grunt" didn't seem to realize what was happening until my claws had severed his spine. It once again only occurred to me later that it was actually quite strange that I would know anything about the grunt's anatomy, or what anatomy is for that matter, but then I only had the desire to kill. The second grunt was frozen in fear, and put even less of a resistance than the other, as he fell into my chamber as I made my way towards him, and the liquid inside was meant for my kind only, as he uttered a scream so pained that I began to wonder what the substance could possibly be. I began to turn to the remaining two creatures that had entered the room. One was carrying a strange weapon while I began to fall into unconsciousness once again. The last thought I had before entering a sort of dream world was that I may have handled the whole exchange wrong.

"_Holy Hell! What do we even need these for?! These, these things have to be highly unstable at best. What military would want something like this?"_

_Anna was amazed that someone, even someone as simple-minded as LaChance, had not picked up on the rumors of Team Shadow going to war in the next few years. At the moment, it did not seem necessary to tell this to the man. As for the Shadow, he dispatched the guinea pigs she had requested quite handily. Even more impressive given the men were former Rangers, who were supposed to be the best non-Legendary force on the planet. It amused her further that the first was killed by a severed spine as well as a torn apart esophagus brought by the Shadow's claws and fangs. Perhaps LaChance should be in the loop after all._

"_This, my assistant, is the Legendaries' reckoning. S1-027 Fang. Our first Shadow."  
_

**2 Weeks Later**

I awoke to find myself being watched intently by the same two people I failed to kill in the chamber room. However, I no longer felt the Hunger from earlier, so I figured I might as well get some answers. I figured I wouldn't get anything from the man though. He seemed close to tears, probably out of fear. Huh, nice to see these two seemed to have more brain power than those others, if only slightly. Then the woman spoke,

"How do you feel?"

I was struck by the question; I was tied to a damn chair with no feeling in my arms or wings. So I responded with the only appropriate response,

"Are you on crack right now?" Yes that is exactly what I said, what would you say? Actually, to be honest I'm quite uncomfortable right now. Would you be so kind as to maybe alleviate this situation, por favor? No, that's idiotic.

"Well at least we don't have to worry about you talking if you're captured," she joked with a laugh. The man looked even more terrified than before. He must not have been the one with the tranquil-, wait a minute.

"How is it I know so much more of your human terminology, like human for instance?"

"We took the liberty to implant basic… street smarts, into your frontal lobe, as well as the equivalent of a PHD in nearly every subject," she still had that grin, so I guess she was proud of making something so smart, which seems warranted I guess, "You actually have an IQ of about 257"

I have to admit, it's really hard to complain after hearing that. Thankfully I seemed to be fueled by spite, "Cool, maybe next time you could make your living super computer a little less lethal. I really enjoyed that by the way, if you have anyone you don't like, just send them to me. You know, people like that blabbering idiot in the corner"

The woman laughed at that, "oh I will! I will!" Something about the way she said that bothered me, as if everything I've done so far was expected. She proceeded to explain that now that I was here there would be others like me and that we would play a pivotal role in the next few years.

"I don't really have a choice do I?" I asked

"Not really. By the way, my name is Anna; that's LaChance, the blabbering idiot you mentioned earlier."

"Okay Mom," I thought that was a nice joke. Unfortunately, she took it as a reason to force that on all the others, which is something they gave me crap about for, well, uh, well crap they still do it.

**11 years BCEG**

They didn't even see it coming. The Rangers were used to a relatively easy lifestyle, for Rangers anyway. They had no poachers to worry about due to their proximity to the Johto league headquarters, and thus they had virtually no need for drills of any kind. The only redeeming quality this garrison had is its sheer size. At nearly four hundred strong, even the worst untrained imbeciles with guns would give a unit pause. We had five soldiers. Not exactly what you would call even odds but we make it work, even if we weren't full strength at the moment.

"Nyx, you're overwatch today. Try to take out the sentries first then go apeshit." I was made squad leader of Cronos' elite strike force, Fireteam Reaper.

"You don't even have to tell me that anymore you know that, right Fang?" Nyx was the Shadow clone of Darkrai, which is cool, as I always kicked his ass in training exercises while being a much less intimidating Pokémo- no! Latios are badass damnit!

"Yeah, knowing you, you would only try to take on half of them by yourself while we get caught in the middle," Dawn was essentially the voice of reason in FTR, and was unique as she was the only Shadowmorph in the squad.

"Come on let's do this already, I don't want to miss that date!" The one we had to really keep an eye on was Scarrex. If it wasn't bolted down, dead, the target, or capable of kicking the crap out of him, he was apt to try and get in its pants. This has caused numerous issues with unit cohesion: Batch two just didn't seem to be into that sort of thing nearly as much, especially when that sort of thing is done with Rayquaza's Shadowclone. He never seemed to be particularly keen on missions, certainly not when compared to Nyx.

"If you all spent nearly as much time studying the intel as you do screwing one another we probably would've noticed the huge garrison, no?" The buzzkill was Zap. Who is a Zapdos. Really the originality of our names is as varied as we are, and even more infuriating to a certain extent. He usually isn't like this, just when he's away from Solar and Blizzard, who are the other two Birds. Yep, who needs originality?

"Why aren't we killing objective Solace of Venice anyway? I thought we got called in for the high profile kills." He did have a point.

"Objective Solace of Venice has a capture order on her head because this is an intel sweep. We nab her, tag her, follow her, and we get a much bigger prize." I explained.

Dawn was surprised at this, "you expect her to be a Chosen One?"

"No, but Mom does, and what she says goes. Besides, Danisha is getting worried that the Legendaries are going to realize the threat soon." We waited in the crowd until the acknowledgment light for overwatch clicked on. " Alright everyone, lets do this, remember SOP, we are ghosts, hand signals only." I checked to make sure the safety was off my Kriss Vector, and that my helmet had our trademark red coloring to the visor, both parts of which are the eyes of a skull, and I activated my active camo. The hunt was on.

**Merii's POV**

_Merii couldn't believe it. She was just minutes away from being able to go to the Kanto region! She ad always wanted to go but never really had the money for it, but after a few gym victories she had just enough for a shot at the league there. She might even get to try and beat the elite four! Not to mention Suicune had been begging to go see the legendary birds for months now and it seemed like Arceus himself had made her win. She just had to make it through this damn line at the Ranger HQ._

"_Excuse me, miss," she turned to see one of the Rangers elite soldiers smiling down at her. These guys were trained in Unova and sent all over the globe to fight Team Shadow, who seemed to escalate things on a daily basis. They haven't ever really posed a problem, though, due to their grunts being pretty pathetic. They also still didn't think to use guns extensively, much to Suicune's amusement. Merii never did understand that._

"_Yes sir?" she asked, she had no idea why she was being held up so close to the front of the line, even if it was by a celebrity._

"_I couldn't help noticing you seem to be packing a bit heavy for Kanto's climate. It doesn't get below sixty in winter down there, unless you head to Articuno's lair, which I don't recommend." Damn, Merii thought. She didn't think it was that obvious._

"_Well, I didn't think it was a crime to try and catch a glimpse of a legendary every now and then is it?" This much was true. No laws had been made regarding the treatment of legendaries since it was near impossible to find them if they didn't want to be found._

"_Normally no, but in light of increasing attacks against areas that house information on their usual habitats the Leagues have decided that anyone that knows the location of any Legendaries are to be accompanied by a member of Ranger Elite." Well crap Merii thought she would've been kept from going, this was actually better!_

"_Wow, that isn't what I thought was going to happen at all, this isn't some kind of joke is it?"_

"_No, and I have to admit I'm sort of relieved. No offense, but when I heard someone was geared up for winter conditions in Kanto I thought it was going to be some old lady, not someone as lovely as yourself. My name's Sam by the way," Merii was at a loss for words. Was she really going to Kanto, with a Ranger Elite, that was hitting on her? This was a dream, she was sure of it._

"_You don't come off as someone that gets star struck like this."_

"_I usually don't, but it seems like everything is going right today, my name's Merii anyways," she was practically jumping or joy at this point, not at the hitting on her part, all though she was flattered. She was just happy to be traveling with other people for a change. People that wouldn't judge her._

"_Yeah well we should probably get our ti- what the hell?" Merii couldn't understand how someone could go from flirty to pissed in half a second, so she asked,_

"_Um, what's wrong?_

"_Some idiot is playing with the red alert signal."_

"_You don't think it could be real?"_

"_Not really, if it was a real emergency, someone at the sentry positions would have alerted us by now, and it's been all quiet for weeks," Sam said other things but Merii was distracted by something happening at one of the guard towers. It looked like the Rangers there were just falling down._

"_Uh, I'm not in the military but I'm pretty sure that isn't standard operating procedure!" Sam looked to where Merii was pointing just in time to see another Ranger's head explode. Wait. Explode?_

"_Oh my God! Get down Merii now!" He then started yelling into his headset while a mind numbing siren went off. Sam was yelling at her to follow him, but at that point there was so much confusion and panic in the crowd that everyone was screaming and stampeding for the nearest building. People were getting trampled, children were crying and wandering aimlessly, and Pokémon that were in the daycare center broke out and added to the mayhem. All the while more rangers were being picked off and it seemed to Merii that the world was ending. Then Sam grabbed her with the Pokémon she had with her, her precious Luke and Jayden, and pulled her towards the fire door. After going through it was much less populated and it became possible to here what Sam was saying, but she was far from coherent by now._

"_Merii listen to me. I saw some Rangers fall down dead like they were just stabbed in the neck. I think whoever is doing this is using active camouflage."_

"_So they're invisible or something?"_

"_Who said that?" Merii was brought back to reality by this._

"_That's Luke, my Lucario. He's the one that can keep a cool head even in hellish situations like this." She didn't think she wanted to know how Rangers dealt with this on a regular basis. They must be superhuman or something._

"_Fair enough I guess. To answer your question yes they are in fact invisible right now. You know the legendaries. You have any idea what they want?" Merii thought she knew exactly why they were here. Suicune. They had to know about her; why else would they be here?_

"_They're here for me." _

"_Well in that case we need to move. We'll lose them in the forest, let's go." _

_They were about to go deep in the forest when a giant projection of some woman appeared at the center of the outpost, which was littered with the corpses of Rangers. Sam seemed to be near tears; Merii figured he had friends in the pile. Then after what seemed like hours, the woman spoke._

"_Greetings. My name is unimportant. All you need to know is that the soldiers that handily smashed a very large amount of your best fighters. Fireteam Reaper, you may show yourselves now."_

_At that the most terrifying thing that day happened: only four figures materialized amongst the carnage and cowering people. And they had Team Shadow insignias on there helmets and shoulder pads. The helmets looked like skulls with demonic red eyes, like blood staring at everything at once. The rest looked like something strait from a videogame. Suddenly, it wasn't nearly as funny to see the active camouflage suits as it was in Call of Duty. These guys certainly weren't pushovers in comparison to the opposition. The active camouflage suits were gone in a flash however, and were replaced by some kind of miniature version of EOD armor. All jet black with blood red stripes on the arms and chest. Merii didn't know this already, she merely heard the increasingly more terrified ramblings from Sam._

"_Listen," he whispered, "I know you're tired, but we need to move, it looks like they have all the civilians in the main courtyard and are looking for someone in particular; probably you," Merii agreed but, to her and her companions' horror, all four of the soldiers locked eyes with them. They turned to run like demons possessed but found a fifth soldier bearing down on them. No, Merii thought, bearing down didn't do it justice. What happened was more an annihilation than anything else. In the blink of an eye Sam was on the ground; his legs shattered; his arms bending in an obviously unnatural angle. If it weren't for him going into shock, Merii doubted she would've been able to handle it with the screams._

_Then the woman in the projection spoke again, "I'll let you handle it Reapers! See you soon," and with that she disappeared. Seconds later the remaining four soldiers were towering above Merii and her lovers. Then one pulled out a hypodermic needle while they were restrained by the others, it took two to keep Jayden down, much to their surprise… she assumed. The helmets made them look perpetually angry. She was injected some clear liquid in her arm before passing out. When she woke up, she saw Sam sitting next to her with Suicune making sure they were both going to live._

"_I thought you were, uh, broken." Merii was glad Sam was okay, but she was still in shock from earlier._

"_I was, thankfully Suicune over there isn't some pain induced hallucination on my part," they grinned at that, although no one present felt like joking, not even Jayden, who was making Luke look less somber in comparison. Merii guessed he was depressed that he was powerless to stop what happened. Then suicune spoke,_

"_I already checked what was in that needle, not that you seem to care, but it was just water."_

"_Wait really?" Everyone was surprised at this. _

_Sam was the first to voice what they were all thinking, "why the injection then?"_

**Fang's POV**

We were in a helicopter hovering about a thousand miles above the target and her friends. The nanobots that were acting as bugs and tracking devices were transmitting flawlessly, and everyone was congratulating Scarrex on his great idea. I have to admit, he was due for one at some point. Then Anna came back on the projector,

"I assume that the mission was a success?"

I spoke up first, "Objective Solace of Venice tagged Mom, no casualties."

Then Nyx, "Overwatch achieved, al sentries were eliminated within the first two minutes of the operation, none activated the military distress alarm."

Then Dawn, "Panic alarm was engaged by distressed civilians, panic promptly ensued, while the daycare was… relieved of its patrons by a few well placed shots from Nyx, and complete disorientation of the _hundreds _of defenders who were promptly eliminated."

Then Zap, "Objective Solace of Venice was promptly located, more or less accidently," Nyx looked pissd after that, the rest of us laughed a bit, "and called us over o secure."

Lastly Scarrex, "And now the tracking and listening devices are in place, phase one complete Mom." After further congratulations from Anna, we headed back to base."

**1 hour later**

Afterwards the rest of Fireteam Reaper: Solar, Blizzard, Grace, who was a Latias Shadowclone, Mantle, who is the Shadowclone of Groudon, and Reef, who is the Shadowclone of Kyogre, bought us some drinks. Yep, our names are paragons of originality on one side and third grade renditions on the other. Everyone started pairing, or in some cases tripling, off, until all that was left in the bar was me and Dawn. Somehow I feel like the others are trying to tell us something.

I didn't realize what that was until later, so get off my ass about not making a move. Instead we just talked about random shit that came to mind. The hours went by and when we looked at the clock and it said 4 a.m., we just said screw it and kept talking. We never could sleep much after that mission anyway; all the intel we got from the bug was shitloads of people crying for their loved ones. Somehow our conversation kept going back to the day's mission. We pulled it off, but it left a bad taste in our mouth. It wouldn't be the last time one of our missions did so either.

**Author's Note pt. II**

_Well there's the start of this series. Hope you all enjoy it. Also the Insane version of SE is forcing me to say this at gunpoint. Yes he told me to put that as well. Anyways he wants me to remind anyone reading this that he is accepting any requests for a parody/obliteration of the universe of your choice. Yep. Hope you liked the start of this series anyways. Don't review unless you have something constructive to say, ah screw it I could use the congratulations and praise. Fire away. ~Sane SE_

_Side Note: yes I know the second author's note is narcissistic as hell. Also no damn lemons!_


End file.
